Super-Role-Model Christy Turlington in Vogue

Supermodel. Graduate student. Documentary filmmaker. It's an achievement when a person can call themselves just one of those things, but 40-year-old Christy Turlington is a different kind of triple threat who boasts all three feats, plus a successful marriage and family with actor-director husband Ed Burns. In the August issue of Vogue, Christy sits down to talk about her modeling career, getting a master's degree at Columbia University and making the upcoming documentary, "No Woman, No Cry," about maternity in developing countries. Read a few excerpts here or the whole interview on Style.com, and be sure to pick up your issue when it hits newsstands on July 21.

On being a super senior in Columbia University's public health graduate program:

"Now I'm 40 and getting this degree, I might be on the cusp of the career that I always wanted."

On how she garnered attention over peers Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista:

"That's a way I got attention. All I had to do as a model was be sweet and kind and a team player and hang up my clothes and I got accolades -- how easy is that?"

On being the breadwinner at an early age:

"My income surpassed my dad's in my first year of modeling -- and my dad made a good living. That puts you in a different place in your family, and the power dynamic shifts. I kind of liked the power in a weird way, but I was confused by it."

On skipping that "awkward phase":

"I skipped that self-critical place that's dangerous for any teenager. I kind of figured, if Vogue thinks that I look OK, I probably look OK. Working with Arthur Elgort, Patrick Demarchelier and Steven Meisel, I felt pretty confident in my day-to-day life."

On how she survived the cutthroat world of modeling:

"One of the reasons I've been lucky in the business is that I had normalcy, I had a family, I stayed in school -- all of the things I didn't want at the time."